The Horrors and Destruction that Donald Trump Has Imposed On America...Just Kidding! Part 9

Before we start today’s discussion, let’s review my voting history: 

• I have never voted for a Republican for President in my life. 
• Thus, I did not vote for Trump. 
• I have rarely voted for a Republican for national office in my life. 

A about 18 months ago, many liberals, Democrats, and millennials were besides themselves with grief and fear because their pre-ordained queen, Hillary Clinton, was not elected President. Instead, Donald Trump was elected, an individual that these same people despised, hated, and feared, an individual they felt would endanger and possibly destroy the country and our democracy. For the past year and a half they fretted, worried and lashed out at anything or anyone that even remotely smelled of Donald Trump.

Given that Trump has been in office for about 18 months, I thought, that as someone who did not vote for him, it would be a good idea to review the horror, trauma, and terrible things that Trump has subjected the country to in just eighteen month’s time. This is obviously a very sarcastic comment when you take an unbiased look at what has happened during the Trump Presidency. The many previous posts we did on this topic identified over 120 good things that have happened to America and Americans since Trump became President:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald_31.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald_27.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

The latest Gallup poll shows that Americans have not been this optimistic about their future since 2005 with 38% saying they are satisfied with the way things are going in America today, a level not reached since the 39% level last reached in September, 2005.

Trump’s approval ratings continue to trend up while his disapproval ratings continue to go down.

Over 50% of those in the Gallup poll give Trump a better than 50% approval rating on his handling of the economy.

According to Rasmussen polling, Trump’s approval rating is higher than either Reagan’s or Obama’s approval rating was at the same point in all three Presidencies.

A new Trump Labor Department regulation will make it easier for small business owners to band together as a related group to negotiate lower health care insurance rates for their employees, a move that the Congressional Budget office estimates will allow 4 million Americans to get much more affordable healthcare insurance by 2023.

These “association” insurance plans are estimated to reduce the annual insurance premiums anywhere from $1,900 to $4,100 a year. 

This regulation and other changes are estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to reduce the deficit by $1 billion.

As part of the initial meeting between North Korea and the Trump administration, North Korea has agreed to return the remains of thousands of U.S. servicemen to us and their families.

The Federal Reserve of Atlanta estimates the the national economy will expand by about 4.6% on an annualized basis in the second quarter, and almost unprecedented success.

The U.S. trade deficit fell to a seven month low in April as exports hit a record high.

U.S. total household wealth topped the $100 trillion mark for the first time ever in the first quarter of 2018 according to the Federal Reserve.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. had the highest economic growth rate at 2.9% among the seven major economies in the world over the past year.

The median U.S. household income is up to $61,483, up over $2,000 or almost 3% in just a year.

As a result of the Trump tax cuts, over 100 utility companies have cut their utility rates according to a Politifact fact check.

Another fourteen reasons to add to the previous 120 or so reasons why the first year and a few months of the Trump Presidency has not wrought disaster on the country.

For those of you that have hated on Trump since day one, and given your obvious gross error in judgment relative to Trump, let me ask that you to do us all a favor by implementing the following changes in your behavior and attitude:

• Chill out, tamp down your TDS affliction. No matter how much you hate Trump on a sexist, personal basis, get over it. He is the legally and duly elected President, he will be around for a while so refocus your hatred on more constructive issues and matters. You will live a lot longer if you take your hatred out of your heart and soul and devote it to something positive.
• I would really appreciate it if some of you would apologize to the Trump voters you have disrespected in some of the grossest terms possible over the past year. You have called millions of voters racists, ignorant, stupid, Nazis, KKK members, and other horrible names simply because you disagreed with their voting choice. No American should be called such disgusting names simply because they exercised their Constitutional rights to the best of their abilities. Plus, slandering over 60 million Americans is no way to unite the country and get it focused on the real issues facing us all.
• More personally, I would like, no I am demanding, an apology from some of you for your slanderous and disgusting name calling because in doing so, you insulted and disrespected my sister, my family members, my friends, and my co-workers who simply voted their conscience. I will defend their right to vote anyway they wanted and will no put up with your childish and vicious venom and bile directed at them, very important people in my life.
• And finally, I challenge you to read the following blog post, a post that shows quite clearly that it was hateful people like some of you and your silence during the Obama years that actually caused Trump to be elected. Thus, the people you hate for voting for Trump are actually looking back at you in the mirror:
• 
  
• https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2016/03/how-american-liberals-and-washington.html

If you were silent in the dozens of instances listed in this post then you were responsible for the very thing you hate: a Trump Presidency. Or put another way, a so far successful and productive Trump Presidency. Over 140 accomplishments in a little more than a year is not too shabby despite many of you wanting both Trump and the country to fail.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

June, 2016, Part 2, By The Numbers, Suicide Rates Up, Economic Trends Down, and More

On a periodic basis we do some posts that fall under the theme of “by the numbers.” Rather than trust what the American political tells us about reality, we like to examine the real numbers and the real reality in the world to understand what is actually going on. Relying on politicians, and their cohorts in the media, to tell us what is reality is always a sucker bet. They have their own agendas and goals, usually centering around their needs and self-enrichment. So we need to look at the reality of the numbers to determine what is really going on.

Previous analyses of “by the numbers” can be accessed by entering the phrase in the search box above. This is the second post this month where we look at the numbers to truly find out how good, not likely, or bad, most likely, the American political class is doing in managing our tax dollars, protecting our freedoms, and resolving major issues that affect all of us. 

1) Yesterday, talked a lot about economic numbers and how anemic the Obama recovery has been as a result of his failed economic policies and strategies. Let’s continue that discussion today with an article by James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation, written on June 2, 2016, in response to the President bragging about his economic wisdom in a recent Indiana speech:

• First off, the President both took credit for saving the economy, as if no other President ever brought the country out of a recession, and blamed any of HIS shortcomings economically on long term trends that were in place before he took office, i.e. anything good that happened was because of me, anything bad that happened started way before I showed up and cannot be blamed on me: “… where we haven’t finished the job, where folks have good reason to feel anxious, is addressing some of the longer-term trends in the economy—that started long before I was elected—that make working families feel less secure. These are trends that have been happening for decades now and that we’ve got to do more to reverse.”
• But this argument does not hold up to scrutiny and the real world numbers: Congressional Budget Office analyses found that household incomes of the middle quintile of U.S. households grew by 33% between 1979 and 2007, just before the recession, and incomes in the bottom quintile grew even faster, about 50%.
• All of which made Americans happy since in 2007, Gallup polling then found that 43% of Americans found the state of economy to be excellent or good while only 16% found it to be poor. So much for the economy stinking before Obama showed up.
• Today, Gallup finds that more Americans think the economy is in poor shape than in excellent or good condition, a far cry from the reversed feelings in 2007.
• Anemic national economic growth has resulted in the labor force participation rate being 2 percentage points below the pre-recession levels despite being six or so years out of the recession.
• The average jobless American now takes an average six months to find a new job, far longer than Obama promised when he put forth his failed economic stimulus plan.

As a result of these numbers and the economic numbers we reviewed yesterday, it is so clear that the Obama recovery and economic expertise has been by far the weakest since World War II ended. And this horrid economic showing was attained despite spending over $800 billion on a failed economic stimulus program, record low energy costs for a long time, and trillions of dollars that the Fed pumped into the economy. 

2) More economic numbers that are less than robust:

• The Department of Commerce recently released its second iteration estimate for the first quarter GDP.
• The estimate was .8%, up slightly from the original estimate of .5% but still pretty horrid.
• This was the second slowest economic quarterly growth since the recession ended.
• Since Obama became President, the annual national economic growth has averaged a lowly 1.3%, less than half of the long term (1946 to 2007) national annual growth rate of over 3.5%, a number that includes both recession and non-recession periods.
• The 1.3% is the lowest Presidential economic growth trend since the Eisenhower administration.
• The Census Bureau estimates that inflation adjusted median household income has fallen from $55,313 in 2008, the year the recession started to $53,657, six years after the recession ended.
• Business investment in the first quarter of this year was down 6.2% over the first quarter of 2015, the most radical drop since the recession in 2009.
• Consumer spending in the first quarter of 2016 was down to 1.9% from 2.4% in the fourth quarter in 2015. 

The numbers are pretty clear: Obama’s economic policies have resulted in lowly economic growth and opportunities over the past six years of so-called recovery and now we can see that this anemic economic growth is even slowing down to a crawl. The numbers do not lie.

3) We have spoken about this topic a lot but it is worth visiting it again from a numbers perspective. According to Breitbart, Chicago continues to be a very violent place despite the tightest gun control laws in the country:

• Recently, 4 Chicago citizens were killed and 53 were wounded in only four days.
• In a recent 16 hour period, 20 Chicagoans were shot.
• A 12 year old was shot when a drive by shooter fired 15 shots at the boy and his friends.
• Police believe most of the shootings are drug and gang related.
• So far this year, almost 1,400 Chicago people have been shot and over 200 have been killed by gunfire.

These are the numbers that happen in the most gun controlled city in the country. 

4) Obama likes to claim that he single handedly created wonderful economic conditions in this country, that he helped bring the races together, etc. In his mind, he is truly a miracle worker. But over the past week or so we have shown that his economic revival has been anything but good, robust, and inspiring. His racist actions have, if anything, created more animosity between the races.

And his less than outstanding performance is starting to show up, at least indirectly, in the suicide numbers and rates across the country. According to an article from the most recent AARP magazine:

• Suicide rates of Americans are at 30 year highs.
• While suicide rates have been trending up since 1997, that rate of increase accelerated after 2006 as the country lived through the recession and the Obama Presidency.
• With the exception of Americans 75 and older, the suicide rate grew by a whopping 24% overall since 2006.
• The largest jump in the suicide rate was for Americans aged between 45 and 64, with the rate for men in that age group going up 43% and for women it was up an incredible 63%.
• According to the National Center For Health Statistics and other studies, there is a rising sense of hopelessness among middle aged Americans despite the rosy picture that Obama tries to paint.

Just another sign and set of numbers that prove we are being served by the worst set of Washington politicians ever to hold office, so much so that record numbers of Americans are killing themselves rather than face life going forward in this country.

5) How bad are the likely candidates for President, Trump and Clinton, viewed by a lot of the country? According to a recent Reuters/ipsos opinion poll, preventing Clinton from winning is the main reason why 47% of Trump voters are voting for Trump and preventing Trump from winning is the main reason why 46% of Clinton voters are voting for Clinton. 

This is clearly a prime example of the “queen of the pigs” theory. This is how far our electoral processes have degenerated, my candidate is not as bad as the other candidate. In almost half of the voters’ minds, they have to vote to avoid something rather than vote for something. Pathetic.

That will do it for today’s numbers. Half of American hating their candidate less than the other candidate, suicide numbers are rising as dissatisfaction with the country and life and the government rise, the Chicago dead and wounded numbers continue to escalate, and the Obamanomics tragedy marches on with more anemic economic results. More numbers tomorrow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

August, 2014 Political Class Insanity, Part 2; Social Security Wastes $300 Million, NASA Wastes $350 MIllion, and More

It is that time of the month where every month we review the latest insanity, ineptness, wasteful spending, stupid quotes, and other frivolity of the American political class. Unfortunately, we have a pretty full plate this month, a plate that is going to take a long list of posts to get through as our politicians continue to prove that we are living through the worst set of politicians today that this nation has ever had to endure.

Our first insanity update was yesterday, making this the second in what promises to be a long series of continuing ineptness by the American political class.

1) We start off today with a typical Federal government data systems project. Typical in that after spending big bucks to build the system, the system does not work, much like the Obama Care online heath insurance exchange data system processes. This example was within the Social Security administration and involved the following fiascos, according to a recent Associated Press report:

• The Federal Social Security Administration (SSA) spent nearly $300 million on a new computer system to handle disability claims.
• Despite spending so much money, the Administration cannot get it to work. 
• They have been working on the project and problem for six years and still have no idea when it might be available to help with the high volumes of disability claims.
• The SSA claims the project is still only in the testing phase, six years and $300 million later, but claims it cannot estimate when it will be operational or how much it will cost.
• "The program has invested $288 million over six years, delivered limited functionality and faced schedule delays as well as increasing stakeholder concerns," said a report by McKinsey & Co., a management consulting firm.
• According to the article, SSA executives have decided to "reset" the program in an effort to save it and needed bring in the outside consultants from McKinsey to figure out what went wrong.
• On top of the operational problems and disasters, now the House Oversight Committee is also looking into the computer project, and whether Social Security officials tried to bury the McKinsey report, with committee members officially calling the project "an IT boondoggle."

Unfortunately, this is so typical of large Federal government data systems projects. We have previously reported on such ineptness where we discussed a study that found over 90% of large government data systems projects never get finished at all or fall far short of their intended goals.

Thus, while members of Congress worry about trivial things like the name of the Washington Redskins or names of Post Office locations, we are pretty sure that the Federal government is basically broken at the operations level in executing its basic functions. But that that situation never seems to be part of what politicians are worried about, issue PR releases about, or set up photo ops about.

2) Depressing article recently published by the AgainstCronyCapitalism.org website, "The Real Problem with the Economy," further illustrated the economic ignorance and stupidity of the current political class. Their inability to understand basic economic theory and policy has resulted in probably the most serious deterioration in the standard of living in this country in our entire history.

According to the website’s review of a recent New York Times article, the inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical American household was $87,992 in 2003. Just ten years later, it was only $56,335, representing a whopping 36% decline when adjusted for inflation and reality. This analysis and depressing finding was included in a study financed by the Russell Sage Foundation. 

I would bet that most long term members of Congress have been immune to this trend, given that they currently enjoy annual salaries that are three times the size of the $56,335 median. Their immunity and economic ignorance probably means that their personal trend will not turn around soon.

That is why we suggested Step 36 from “Love My Country, Loathe My Government” be implemented for all members of Congress. Step 36 reads as follows: Require all members of the political class upon their election to Congress of the White House to take and pass a course on economic concepts and principles. 

This might at least give them a fighting chance to put forth sound economic policies. Lord knows that without such training we are stuck with an ever declining standard of living.

3) A recent article in Business Week looked at how much the Defense Department (DOD) paid for standard helicopter parts from Bell Helicopter. The article was based on work done by a DOD watchdog group. Their top line findings found that the Department of Defense in 2012 paid $13.4 million for 35 standard helicopter parts but should have only paid $4.4 million.

Their detailed findings included the following examples of overpayment:

• A sleeve spacer: paid $29.95 for each, should have paid $7.49, a 300% markup.
• An inner swash plate cap: paid $2,355.85 each, should have paid $412.12, a 472% markup.
• A shim: paid $237.51 each, should have paid $25.86, an 818% markup.
• Bevel gear: paid $8,123.50, should have paid $445.06, an amazing 1,725% markup.

The article contains other parts examples which are just as insane. It is these types of examples that prove:

1. Government is severely broken at the operational level.
2. It should be no surprise how the country got to almost $18 TILLION in debt given how out of control and wasteful government and political class spending is across all facets of government.
3. When Nancy Pelosi pathetically states there is nowhere to cut government spending, just give her these examples.

4) Speaking of wasting money, consider another recent article from Business Week. NASA will complete work on a $350 million tower to test rocket engines at the John C. Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The 350 foot steel frame facility was built to test rockets that were going to send America back into space, to the moon, and possibly beyond under NASA’s Constellation program.

The sad news is that the tower will probably never be used since the program was terminated years ago. President Obama proposed ending the Constellation program back in 2010 but taxpayer money continued to be spent on the tower. $292 million had already been spent by that time but incredibly, another additional $57 million was spent on this relic since then.

Not surprisingly, Mississippi's two U.S. Senators have helped keep taxpayer money flowing to create jobs on a home state project that will never be used. Another reason why we have an $18 TRILLION national debt with nothing to show in return for our wasted investment. Think about it. For $350 million we have useless cement tower in Mississippi. If we had used that money logically, sanely, and unselfishly:

• How many homeless kids could have been fed in America?
• How many sick and ailing vets could have gotten the medical treatment they need and deserve?
• How many drug addicts could have gotten the treatment they need to kick the habit?
• How many unemployed Americans could have gotten job training aid to help them reenter the workforce?

Wasting hundreds of millions of dollars is bad enough. The lost opportunity to take care of those in need in this country is even a sadder commentary on the horrendous priorities of Washington’s political class.

That’s enough insanity for today. More to follow over the next few days as we continue to prove that we are being served by the worst set of politicians in the history of this country, hands down.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

June, 2014 Poltiical Class Insanity, Part 6: Bonus Post On Political Class Incompetence in DC and in....Swaziland

I know I promised that yesterday would be the last political class insanity post for this month but I have to break that promise. As quickly as I write up the latest lunacy, more crops up from what is turning out to be the worst set of Washington politicians this country has ever had to endure. However, I guarantee that this will absolutely be the last insanity post for this month no matter how much ineptness I come across in the coming days and weeks.

1) David Stockman is a well noted economist who served as Reagan’s main budget person during the Reagan administration. Recall that once Reagan, and to a great deal Stockman, worked through the economic and financial mess that Jimmy Cartyer left the country with, the U.S. economy took off on one of the greatest economic boom periods ever. Thus, Stockman has a proven track record and experience in the real world.

Which makes his latest analysis that much more depressing, given how accurate he has been in the past. This analysis reveals that

median household income in the United States peaked back in 1999 and has been decreasing at a steady clip over the past 15 years. 

Since 1999, when adjusted for price inflation, Stockman estimates that median household income is down by 9%. Thus, most Americans are worse off financially through both the Bush and Obama administrations, with the majority of the decline happening since the end of the Great Recession.

Over that time period, the Federal Reserve pumped in trillions of dollars into money with no sound basis in wealth or economics, the Obama administration spent well over $800 hundred billion dollars in a stimulus plan that was a financial disaster, and the U.S. government has run trillions of dollars in deficits. Stockman’s conclusion is simple: the political class has no clue what it is doing when it comes to economic analysis and policies, not if they have destroyed nine percent of Americans' wealth in just fifteen short years.

2) Stockman’s analysis was not just on a national level, it was on a state by state level so that we can see what states are losing the median household income game slower and faster. But you can probably already guess the answer to what part of the country saw the slowest deterioration in household income. 

Yes, the top “state” was Washington D.C. While the average U.S. household saw its median income slip 9% over the past fifteen years, the median household income in Washington did nine points better, i.e. it has not lost anything off of its median household income since 1999, better than every other state except for Wyoming, which also has not lost anything relative to income.

Again, as we have seen time and time again, those in the seat of power in Washington certainly take care of themselves before they take care of the rest of the country, if ever. The least impacted states from a loss of income perspective since 1999 were either in the D.C. metro area influence, (e.g. Virginia, Maryland, and D.C.) or were heavy into the energy industries (e.g. Wyoming, Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota.) 

The rest of the country saw substantial loss of median income levels with some states such as Delaware, Ohio, Nevada, and Michigan seeing their household incomes drop over 21% at the same time that there was no drop in Washington. Thus, is you stayed in these states over the past decade and a half, you lost more than 20% of your buying power through no fault of your own while those in D.C. made sure they lost nothing in their buying power.

3) Two weeks ago, May 22, 2014, was the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Baines Johnson's much ballyhooed “War On Poverty,” according to a recent article put together by Rachel Sheffield. It was with that launch that the scope and expense of the Federal government expanded almost exponentially with the implementation of Head Start, Medicaid, public housing programs, and more.

What has happened in this “war” over the past fifty years is not pretty:

• $22 TRILLION has been spent over that timeframe according to the article but nary a dent has been made in poverty in this country.
• The percentage of Americans dependent on government has remained virtually unchanged since the 1960s.
• This $22 TRILLION has spawned about 80 Federal government welfare programs but has done little to eradicate poverty, as witnessed by the fact that almost 50 million Americans receive food assistance from the Federal government every month, an all time high no matter how you measure it.
• Head Start, according to Obama administration studies, has been turned into nothing more than a glorified Federal babysitting program with no educational or societal benefits beyond babysitting.
• Medicaid, along with its sister program Medicare, is likely to financially bankrupt the country unless something is done to fix the problems they face.

It continues to amaze me that the Washington political class can spend a mind boggling $22 TRILLION and get absolutely nothing in return. Trained seals working on a keyboard could probably do better since trained politicians in Washington got us nothing.

4) If you have been following the news, you know that a lot of our veterans have been suffering, and dying, as a result of incompetence and greed by those in Washington and this administration that operate the Veterans Administration. Although the budget to take care of our veterans has increase substantially over the past few years, that increased funding apparently has been wasted away and we are left with the latest Obama scandal of incompetence.

But although our veterans are dying, citizens in Swaziland are feeling healthier since the United States government is planning to spend $24.5 million to circumcise an estimated 150,000 to 250,000 male infants and males in Swaziland by 2018 to combat HIV. Let that bad priority sink in for a while. Rather than get our veterans the cancer treatments, the checkups, the medicines they need, we are worried about circumcision somewhere around the world in a country that I bet 99.9% of Americans could not find on a map.

Look, I do not consider myself a bad, heartless human being. It is my understanding that HIV is a major problem in countries like Swaziland, whereever in God’s creation it is located. But we have so much suffering and medical shortages right here in our own country in our own VA hospitals, we simply cannot afford to spend over $20 million outside the country in our own times of need.

Besides according to the grant, only “an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 males will be circumcised through this project contributing to a 65 percent coverage by 2018.” Thus, we are talking about a relatively small number of people that will get circumcised which means an even smaller number of people will get HIV in ….Swaziland, sometime in the distant future. In the meantime, many of our veterans are dying today in this country, a situation that might be made better with say the $20 million or so we are sending to…Swaziland.

5) The IRS has been around a long time. You would think and hope that they would have some semblance of competence by now. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has been around a long time. You would think and hope that the long time IRS would have a great handle on administrating the long time EITC.

Unfortunately, you would be wrong on both counts. According to a recent IRS Inspector General report, the IRS EITC program hands out billions in bad payments for earned income tax credit every year. Accordind to a recent Washington Examiner article by Kelly Cohen, the IRS gave out between $13.3 billion and $15.6 billion in improper payments last year. This fraud and inefficiency was accomplished despite the fact that there is a law that requires Federal agencies to crack down on fraudulent payments

Some of the $13.3 to $15.6 billion went to people who did not qualify for the credit. In other cases, an eligible person was paid the wrong amount. According to the Inspector General’s report, for the third year in a row, the IRS has failed to put together a corrective plan to reduce this improper payment rate and fraud nor has it provided all required information for the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010. 

The IRS acknowledged there is a problem with EITC payments and said it was working to resolve the issue. However, given that they have known of the problem and leakage of billions of dollars for three years, I bet we are not looking at a quick resolution of this embarrassment and disgrace.

Just as an aside: how many veterans could have received proper and deserved medical treatment if that $13.3 billion had not been lost to IRS incompetence and had instead been diverted to the Veterans Adminsitration? Just a thought.

So kids, what did we learn from the numbers today: potential and future problems in Swaziland are more important to our politicians than real problems our veterans face today, as always, DC politicians take care of their own financial needs before ours, the IRS still cannot do anything right, and much like the war on drugs, we have also lost LBJ’s Great Society’s “war on poverty,” spending and wasting $22 TRILLION in the process.

Given all of this insanity of these numbers, please consider joining our drive for term limits at the following website:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

Because really, how much worse could it get if we changed out every incumbent politician who cared more about our citizens than themselves or those in ….Swaziland.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

May, 2014 Poltiical Class Insanity, Part 4: Spending More But Getting Less, The Obscene Cost Of Regulation, And Destroying Good Ammunition

This is our fourth and probably not last post this month in our monthly series on political class insanity. At the beginning of every month, we review the insanity, lunacy, idiocy, and wasteful spending and programs of the American political class. Having done this for the past five years, we are continually amazed at how inept and incompetent our politicians are today with our wealth, our freedom, and quality of life.

1) The first several instances of insanity today comes to us from the wonderful website, Bankrupting America. In a previous insanity post several months ago, we discussed how in 2013 the Obama administration had issued over 3,000 new Federal regulations, almost 10 a day for every day of the year.

The obvious problems with such a performance is threefold:

1. Forcing businesses to comply with ten new regulations everyday takes away from business owners’ ability to grow their business and thus, grow the economy and economic opportunities for Americans.
2. At some point, the ever growing mountain of regulations becomes self defeating since they are too numerous to know or too numerous to comply with.
3. And if these thousands of new regulations are so important, why were they not identified in previous Presidential administrations? Could it be that we have gotten to a point that government bureaucrats are making up regulations just to justify their government existence and large compensation packages?

And now Bankrupting America has identified a fourth reason why so many regulations are so stupid and dangerous. A new study conducted by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) found that the average US household pays nearly $15,000 a year in regulatory costs as a result of the thousands and thousands of government regulations. 

If this estimate is accurate, this means that in 2013, the average consumer spent 23% of their household income to pay for just the Federal government’s regulatory burden. Obviously, state government and local government regulations place an additional burden on U.S. household incomes and wealth. 

The CEI study was entitled, titled “Ten Thousand Commandments 2014,” and it found that:

• In 2013, Federal regulation costs reached $1.863 trillion. 
• This is more than the GDPs of Canada or Australia. 
• In 2013, Congress passed only 51 laws but that resulted in 3,659 new rules and regulations, a ratio of 72 new regulations for each law that was enacted.
• Federal regulations burden each household with almost $15,000 in costs each year which is more than what an average household spends on every other household budget item except housing - more than health care, food, transportation, entertainment, apparel, services, and savings. 
• Even worse, according to the CEI, 63 Federal departments, agencies and commissions have more regulations in development.
• The study also showed that small businesses pay more in per-employee regulatory costs than larger firms. According to CEI, “Firms with fewer than 20 employees pay an average of $10,585 per employee, compared to $7,755 for those with 500 or more employees.” These costs are costs that cannot be used to expand business opportunities, which in turn expand the economy and economic opportunities for Americans.

Look, some regulations are necessary to protect the safety and welfare of citizens, that is one of the few legitimate fucntions of government, But adding 10 new Federal regulations every day proves that the political class and the government it oversees has no clue as to what are critical safety needs and what is bureaucratic idiocy and redundancy. And it is quite possible that this idiocy and redundancy are what has stifled economy growth for the entire length of the Obama Presidency.

2) Also from Bankrupting America, in late April, 2014, USAToday reported that the Pentagon plans on destroying more than $1 billion worth of ammunition that otherwise could still be used. According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, the GAO found that the different armed services for the Defense Department have ammunition inventory systems that cannot share data directly. 

Only the Army uses the standard Pentagon format to report their ammunition stockpile, while the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps operate under different and obsolete formats. The GAO suggests this leads to waste from buying new ammunition, while usable stockpiles exist.

Sen. Tom Carper, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee stated, “We simply cannot afford this type of waste and ineffectiveness. The (Pentagon) has a responsibility to efficiently manage its ammunition stocks, not only because it is important to be fiscally responsible, but also because our antiquated ammunition inventory systems can shortchange our war fighters and compromise their ability to complete their mission.” Could not agree with you more, Senator, what are you going to do about it? 

Our armed forces have been around for over two centuries. Computers have been around for over sixty years. We pay the Pentagon hundreds of billions of dollars every year. Given these factors, is it asking too much of the Federal government and the Washington political class to have a few databases that can count and not waste billions of dollars in perfectly good ammunition?

3) Another Bankrupting America update comes from an editorial piece that recently ran in The Hill publication. The editorial discussed a recent study from the Mercatus Center that examined the true root causes of poverty in America and how to attack this chronic problem. 

The study found that there are two simple truths about poverty: poverty arises from joblessness, and government spending doesn’t reduce poverty, two pretty simple ideas that seem lost on the Washington political class. The study identified laws such as the Affordable Care Act and minimum wage legislation that are government programs with good intentions in an ideal world (everyone gets health care, low-wage earners receive higher wages), but in reality lead to greater rates of joblessness and poverty. 

Additionally, consider a quote directly form the study itself, a quote that examines the insanity of how politicians waste our wealth on failing programs:

Throwing more government dollars at this problem won’t solve it. Despite record spending on programs to help the needy, there were a record 46 million Americans in poverty in 2012. Federal spending alone on these programs was $750 billion in the 2011 fiscal year, up more than 30% from 2008.

Let’s do some simple math to put these numbers in perspective: at $750 billion a year, with 46 million Americans in poverty, if we could somehow divide up the $750 billion and just send a check to every American living in poverty, each one of those people would get a check for over $16,000. A family of four would get a check for over $64,000, more than the median household income of every U.S. household. That is how insanely inefficient and ineffective our politicians are when it comes to helping Americans in poverty. 

The money to help them is there, the delivery of that support is pathetically poor. And that $16,000 per person does not include poverty support from state and local governments.

The study concludes that the root of problem lies in the labor market. The majority of Americans living in poverty between the ages of 18 to 64 were unemployed, and only 11% had full-time employment in 2012. According to the editorial, as long as the government continues to pursue policies that discourage people from working or businesses from hiring (see the regulations insanity discussed above), we’ll continue to see high rates of unemployment and consequently, high rates of poverty.

The real problem is that there does not appear to be anyone in Washington who is bold enough and bright enough to break this cycle of wasting taxpayer wealth on poverty programs that do not reduce poverty. As a result, more Americans fall into poverty while anti-poverty programs spend more and more money. Only in Washington could this idiotic combination continue to exist for decades, spending more to get less.

That will do it for today but more insanity will come forth tomorrow. If interested in actually ending the insanity, please consider joining our effort to impose term limits on all politicians at:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

December, 2013 Political Class Insanity, Part 4: Hope For The Future Down, Drone Civilian Deaths Up, Household Incomes Down, And More

This is our fourth post this month on the latest lunacy, idiocy and wasteful ways of the American political class. We do this series at the beginning of every month in order to keep track of how screwed up the current set of Americans politicians have become along with the many ways they destroy our wealth, our economy, our freedom, and in the case of Obama Care, our health and very lives. 

We currently leave the Obama Care insanity to a separate set of posts each month since the wreckage that piece of legislation is raining down on the country is too much to include in our regular insanity reviews. This week and last we have dealt with the normal set of ineptness of our politicians, in Washington and elsewhere throughout the land.

Today, will mostly be a quick hit type of post where we do a quick review of many pieces of insanity that speak for themselves, requiring no further explanation or discussion on our part.

1) According to an article from www.Qz.com, that was summarized in the September 17, 2013 issue of The Week magazine, the median income for U.S. households was $51,017 in 2012, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This is down a whopping 8.3% from 2007. From previous posts that this is a downward trend, it was not happening only during the Great Recession.

Thus, despite the claims of the Obama administration that the economy is improving, you cannot tell it from how much money an average household is bringing in, the only true measure of how healthy an economy is.

2) According to a recent article from Forbes magazine that was summarized in the November 22, 2013 issue of The Week magazine, between 1995 and 2012, 50 billionaires collected an estimated $11.3 million in Federal government farm subsidies, according to the Enviornmental Working Group. However, very few of them even live on a farm, never mind working on a farm.

This free money comes out to about $226,000 per billionaire, more than the median annual household income of more than four average U.S. households. Now ask yourself: is this the best way to spend over $11 million of taxpayer wealth, giving it to billionaires, or would it have better spent on feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, helping the addicted, or just plain giving it back to the American taxpayer?

3) According to a recent Gallup poll that was reported on by the November 8, 2013 issue of The Week magazine, 52% of Americans believe there is “plenty of opportunity” to get ahead in America. 15 years ago in 1998, that same question found that 81% of Americans believed there was “plenty of opportunity” to get ahead. What a difference in fifteen short years, an almost 36% drop off.

When a country loses hope for the future, than there is no hope for the future. We are getting dangerously close to that tipping point in the history of our country, no thanks to the ineptness of the leadership in the political class.

4) According to the New York Times, as reported in the November 8, 2013 issue of The Week magazine, over the past 10 years, 94% of the large Federal government information technology projects that were undertaken failed miserably, the Standish Group research firm reported. Standish found that more than half of the projects were either delayed, ran over budget, or fell short of user expectations or needs. A whopping 41% failed completely.

The real question is why any American still thinks that the whole Obama Care information systems and website effort will ever work, given this horrid track record of the political class in Washington to accomplish hardly any other substantial Federal government information technology effort. A 6% success rate, a 94% failure rate cannot be viewed in any profession, any human endeavor as something to be proud of.

5) Although Obama may be claiming that the economy is getting better, we already know that is a bogus claim, given how we just discussed the fact that household incomes continue to plummet. We also know that there are over 23 million Americans that are either unemployed or underemployed. Almost 50 million Americans require government food assistance.

Add to those dire numbers the reality, as documented in a recent Business Week article, that in August the U.S. ran a still embarrassingly large monthly total trade deficit of just under $39 billion in August, 2013. One month, we as a country imported about $39 billion more goods and services than we exported. You cannot say the economy is getting healthy when the trade deficits remain so high month over month.

6) The Washington political class has led the country into three military conflicts in the past ten years or so. What has that gotten us besides trillions of dollars in debt, thousands of our military personnel killed or wounded, and hundreds of thousands civilians killed or wounded, according to Steve Chapman writing in the Chicago tribune:

• A reinvigorated Al Qaida in Iraq is resulting in 20 Iraqis being killed EVERY DAY.
• In Afghanistan, we are still fighting a fruitless battle against jihadists, the government we support is riddled with corruption, and the Taliban are more than likely to take over again once the western powers withdrawal their military forces in 2014.
• Libya has become a “lawless haven for terrorists," e.g. Benghazi murders.

Senseless waste, useless waste, and inhuman waste.

7) Speaking of waste, consider the damage and wasting of innocent lives that our government’s drone warfare against terrorists has resulted in, according to a report in the May 20, 2013 article in The Week magazine:

• The London based Bureau of Investigative journalism claims its research estimates that U.S. drone attacks have killed more than 800 civilians and nearly 200 children in Pakistan since 2004.
• McClatchy News investigators found that the U.S. claim that it is attacking and killing only Al Qaida fighters and leaders is not true since it found that 482 people killed by U.S. drone attacks in a recent 12 month period were not Al Qaida fighters.
• People in many countries in the Middle East live in daily fear that some unknown, far off American military operator of a dangerous bomb laden drone will unexpectedly wipe out themselves or their friends and family, heightening the stress of just living a normal day and the hatred they have for America.
• They saddest part of this whole killing effort is that even if the Federal government takes out a high profile terror target, that dead target is quickly replaced with another terrorist nut case but the hatred of America has been increased.

Typical government effort: lots of expense, in both blood and money, random successes but systematic failures, and humanity and our homeland defense are worse off.

8) One last bit of insanity for today, an item that proves American politicians are not the only inept rulers in the world. According to a short article in the November, 2013 issue of Reason magazine, government officials in Gothenburg, Sweden have ordered a local nightclub to reduce the volume of music played in the club since the volume was not healthy for the fish kept in the aquarium in the club.

Makes you wonder what the job description read like for the government bureaucrat who actually researched the volume of the nightclub music in order to write the order. If that is what those local taxpayers are spending their taxpayer money on, I would ask for a refund.

That’s it for today. Unfortunately, we are going to need one more day to get all of this month’s insanity covered, it is that bad, thanks to the American political class.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now:http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w